Today Philmore Clines, Jr. was accused of inappropriately penetrating the sexual organ of an 11-year child more than a year ago. Today he took 10 years in TDCJ. Clines plead no contest instead of guilty to the charges claiming he was innocent of the charges but that he did not want to leave that decision to a jury.
At times these trials have different outcomes due to varying circumstances. I sincerely wish the evidence, in this case, would have been stronger. However, the defendant gave three different versions of the events involving three different defendants, including one incident with all three perpetrators involved at the same time during one incident. Additionally, two other potential perpetrators were mentioned during the investigation. At one point the child also retracted her statement regarding one of the perpetrators and then retracted the retraction. The evidence showed that the child had been penetrated due to a medical exam conducted at the Huntsville memorial hospital. Without the physical evidence in this case the case would not have been able to stand, with the physical evidence I felt we had to move forward. While this was not the ideal amount of years for punishment, I was very concerned with the varying stories offered by the victim that the jury could easily have found reasonable doubt that this particular defendant caused the physical trauma seen in the medical exam. If the jury had found reasonable doubt, Clines would be walking the street today instead of heading to TDCJ as a registered sex offender.
